Russia cranks out propaganda as militants hang on in Ukraine

Apr. 30, 2014
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Masked pro-Russian activists pass by a barricade as they guard a regional administration building that they had seized earlier in Donetsk, Ukraine. The propaganda assault began during the pro-Western Maidan protests late last year that ousted Ukraine pro-Russian president in February. / Efrem Lukatsky AP

by Olga Rudenko, Special for USA TODAY

by Olga Rudenko, Special for USA TODAY

KIEV, Ukraine - A rally of about 1,000 pro-Ukrainian protesters was attacked by dozens of men wielding bats in central Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city in the center of the separatist-troubled region.

Or was it?

Ukrainian and international news media reported that the attackers were pro-Russian separatists storming a rally for Ukrainian unity. Russia-based media told a different story.

Russia Today, a TV network controlled by the Russian state, reported that there were two rallies with opposing agendas, and "protesters clashed with each other."

LifeNews, a private, pro-government Russian media outlet, went further. It reported that pro-Kiev football hooligans attacked several hundred citizens of Donetsk who rallied for devolving greater power and autonomy to Ukraine's different regions.

The different versions of the Donetsk incident illustrates why perhaps the Russian people back the moves by President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, and ethnic Russians in Ukraine believe they are under assault.

Russian television continuously portrays the situation in Ukraine as an attack on Russian-speaking people by fascist, neo-Nazi coup plotters, said Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. And there is no alternative view available in Russia given that Putin has eradicated all independent media that may offer a different view, Aron said.

Meanwhile Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov conceded Wednesday that his police and security forces were "helpless" to stifle unrest in the country's east, where pro-Russia gunmen seized more buildings.

Insurgents took control of the customs service building in Donetsk, the region's main city, and the City Hall in Alchevsk, an industrial center of about 110,000. A dozen cities are now in the hands of the separatists.

Much of what Russians will see about the violence will not be what Western news agencies report is happening.

For example, earlier in April, two Russian TV stations, NTV and Rossiya 1, recorded interviews with the same middle-aged Ukrainian man, Andrey Petkov, speaking under different personas.

Speaking to NTV, the man confessed to being a German spy who smuggled in money to support the anti-Moscow protesters. On Rossiya 1, Petkov was a repentant pro-Ukraine extremist who had been beaten savagely by pro-Ukraine demonstrators.

CNN reported that the man was portrayed in a thrid segment as a surgeon who is a neo-Nazi.

"Kiev has only been listening to Americans, who have been dreaming to instigate a fight between Ukraine and Russia," said Dmitry Kiselyov, anchor of the News of the Week program on Rossiya 1 network, in his interpretation of the Ukrainian situation in the program's latest episode, which aired Sunday.

Kiselyov is considered to have so much influence on the Ukrainian crisis that he was among the individuals hit with sanctions by the European Union, and is now banned from travel in Europe and subject to having his assets frozen in the continent.

Russian media is "the main source of disinformation about Ukraine." says Viktoria Siumar, deputy secretary of Ukraine's Council for National Security and Defense.

Siumar criticized as "a perfect example of Russian propaganda" the Russian media reporting of another incident, an alleged attack on the separatist roadblock in the city of Slovyansk on April 20, which was portrayed as the work of pro-Ukraine supporters.

The separatists claimed they killed an attacker, but they have never provided the body or proof. The Ukrainian government says the attack was staged, or invented, to gain sympathy for pro-Russia groups.

Some Russian speakers in Ukraine prefer Russian television for news, so the propaganda they are getting is whipping them up against their government, officials in Kiev say.

Most cable TV subscriptions in the country include several of the main Russian TV channels. Even so, the audience share of Russian TV channels in Ukraine is low.

According to a state-ordered study of TV audiences conducted by GFK Ukraine in early March, the combined share of the three most-watched Russian TV stations in Ukraine was 3.4% of the audience - but that does not mean the Russian broadcasts have no influence.

Anait Avakova, 25, of the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, was surprised to learn that her 60-year old mother doesn't believe Russia is being aggressive toward Ukraine and that she believes the United States is orchestrating both the separatist unrest in the east and the protests against the pro-Russian government that took place over the winter.

"She turned to watching only Russian news some five years ago because she found it more informative back then," Avakova said. "Now I try not to talk to her about politics or situation in the east because her views are opposite to reality. It scares me to think how many more victims of Russian TV crap there might be in Ukraine."

Officials in Kiev are fighting back.

The Kiev City Administrative Court ordered TV cable companies to stop broadcasting three Russian TV channels in Kiev because they were broadcasting "anti-Ukrainian propaganda." Now those channels are only available on satellite.

Aleksandr Kramarevskiy of Simferopol in Crimea, which voted to become part of Russia in March, says he prefers "to get balanced information," reading and watching both Ukrainian and Russian media.

"I don't watch state-owned Russian TV channels but I prefer LifeNews because I personally saw (and liked) the way they work," Kramarevskiy said.